


excuses, excuses

by angularmomentum



Series: #dirtbags [3]
Category: Check Please, Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Trolling, deep sexual repression creates a culture of exhibitionism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 13:45:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10641063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angularmomentum/pseuds/angularmomentum
Summary: Americans, as a rule, are not subtle.Or: terrify your rivals, mock your children, win at life





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lanyon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/gifts), [llwyncelyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/llwyncelyn/gifts).



> enjoy this inexcusable piece of slapstick, warnings for a brief mention of brad marchand's dick

-

Washington

-

Nicky would be lying if he said it wasn’t at least a little bit funny.

The third time Parson tries to make eye contact over the blue line and somehow can’t manage to hold it Nicky almost laughs. It seems more expedient to send the puck up the line and move Parson out of the way with his shoulders.

Parson curses under his breath and whirls around to get into better position, displaying, at least, the speed that usually makes him so dangerous to play against, if none of the composure he’s also somewhat famous for.

“You’ll make an honest man of my son,” Nicky tells him next time their lines match up over the puck drop. “Andre loves so easily.” It is a bald lie, but Parson, obviously, cannot tell.

The fifth time, Nicky is really enjoying himself. “In Sweden,” he says, “you will have to meet his other parents, and tell them I am taking care of him.”

“Is kind of mean, no?” Ovi says in his ear when they change lines. “Look at him, he losing his mind.”

Nicklas thinks Parson deserves what he gets, and that the adage holds that if you can’t take the chill, get off the ice.

The sixth time, Kent looks pleadingly up at him, teeth set into his chewed-up mouthguard. “This is very heteronormative,” he whispers. “Please don’t fucking kill me.”

The seventh time, Nicky hooks the puck away before Parson even moves, which is satisfying, but not as satisfying as the way he jumps when Nicky skates up behind him and tells him to consider Stockholm for a honeymoon.

“He’s not even really your son,” Kent hisses, before Nicky wins their eighth face off.

Sometimes Nicklas loves his job.

-

They do beat the Aces, of course, but not by as much as Nicky would like. They are, grudgingly, a very good team, and Parson, dick issues aside, is a very good captain.

Nicky, though, does not believe in mercy for mercy’s sake, and so when Burky fixes him with a questioning look before the press comes in, Nicky just smiles at him, as wide as he can.

Andre turns a furious brick red colour. “What did you do?”

“Use condoms,” Nicky says serenely, before the microphones flood in and surround him to ask about his eight-for-eight record setting faceoff ratio.

Andre chokes on nothing.

Nicky would forgive him anything, of course, because Nicky actually doesn’t care where he consensually sticks his dick, even if it’s in the opposition. Nicky is not immune to joy. He’s not a _monster._

-

Las Vegas

-

Nicky is not usually a fan of the NHL awards. They’re somewhat unnecessary and the Capitals routinely get shafted for silver. It also involves flying to Las Vegas, a place God invented to fuck with humanity after floating the concept of free will.

It’s not entirely unlike a zoo, but all the terrariums are filled with slot machines.

The drinks are free though, which makes Ovi happy, and when Alex is happy Nicky is happy. As a partial contribution to Nicklas’ general ambivalence to the awards, Alex regularly gets rolled over for less deserving winners, which has the effect of making Nicky’s blood pressure tick up slightly. Last year he even got irritated, but only because Marchand kept trying to get a rise out of Willy for some reason. Nicky had been forced to drastic measures. He’d engineered a situation in which Marchand wound up with Hot Ice on the inside of his boxers and had to go rip them off in the bathroom and spend the rest of the evening trying to get his dick under the tap without hurting himself.

This year the dinner is fish and there’s a roulette table, and Kent Parson is up on the stage taking the Selke again.

“You were robbed,” Burky says earnestly, beer froth on his upper lip and a black beanie keeping his hair down around his ears. He doesn’t mention the fact that he got beaten out of his own category again this year, but that might have more to do with youth and good nature.

“Here,” Alex drops a shot in front of Nicky and slings an arm around him from behind, resting his chin on the top of Nicky’s head. “Next year we do campaign. Make posters, Nicky for Selke or else!”

“I don’t care,” Nicky says for probably the thirtieth time. “We won the Cup, why should I care about this?”

“Is principle.” Alex shoves at Burky with one large, shiny-shoed foot. “Go on, Dad and Papa want you having fun.”

“You’re not my real dads,” Andre says archly, but he clears his chair with reasonable grace so Alex can occupy it, dragging it close enough that he can lean on Nicky and still see the stage.

They watch the rest of the announcements, and then Alex starts getting restless, moving closer and closer until his heavy thigh is nearly in Nicky’s lap. “You wanna get out of here?” He says it like he thinks Nicky might say no.

Nicky intends to mock him, but instead he is caught by the sight of Marchand and, for some reason, Jordie Benn clearing a space off for a dancefloor. “That looks like trouble,” Nicky observes, when the music changes. It’s something atrocious, like Iggy Azaelia, which Nicklas will admit to recognising over his maimed and cooling corpse. Of course, that means Parson will probably start the dance-off.

“Look like fun,” Alex counters, an interested gleam kindling in his eyes.

“I think it’s time to go upstairs.” Nicky is not going to be filmed dancing, thank you. The massage video was enough. One day he’ll have grandchildren. Besides, there’s a low heat kindling under his navel, and the drag of fabric between Alex’s leg and Nicky’s skin is becoming tiresome.

-

He doesn’t mean to catch them, is the thing. That would be like meaning to swallow your own toenail, or willingly and intentionally eating an entire exotic Mexican chili raw, much like Alex did in Baja one summer, when subsequently he turned the colour of an eggplant for twenty full minutes.

Americans, as a rule, are not subtle. Nicky grew up in Sweden, where public drunkenness is a national sport, but he doesn’t think he really realised how effectively deep sexual repression creates a culture of exhibitionism until he came to the NHL and started realising the extent to which people do not give a fuck about screwing in semi-public corners. It’s actually quite impressive.

Nicky is leaving Alex’s room to go find clothes for the morning so he can go to breakfast still smelling of Alex without having to wear any of his bedazzled sweatpants. He turns a corner and nearly bulldozes Andre and Parson, who are giggling drunkenly into each others’ mouths up against Andre’s door, shirts undone and looking distinctly stubble-burned around the cheeks.

Usually if there’s a hotel conveniently attached to the convention centre this scenario is avoided.

He doesn’t laugh, but only just.

“I can’t find my room key,” Andre says, once the silence has stretched for so long that Parson, braced with his hands against the door and his hair standing straight up, starts to look like he might run away.

“You live fifteen minutes from here,” Nicky points out to Parson. “You don’t want to treat him right?”

Parson makes a noise like a wounded goat. It’s not wholly unlike the time Nicky caught Alex with his dick in a sock after a loss to the Penguins, but at least Nicky has a regular and vested interest in seeing his dick. He was vastly more offended Alex hadn’t just let Nicky take him home and wreck him properly, in a bed, with sheets and solid bedposts.

“Nicky?” Alex rounds the corner wearing a pair of baby blue boxers with sparkly crowns on them which Nicky approves of only because they’re Swedish colours and he has no influence over, or interest in, choosing his underwear. “Oh.”

Parson buries his face in Andre’s chest. “Am I about to die?”

Andre opens his mouth, probably to say something kind and sweet and reassuring, which would entirely ruin Nicky’s fun. “I don’t know,” he cuts in. “How fast can you run?”

“On three?” Parson asks Andre, because Parson is a shit, and utterly unrepentant in pursuit of victory, which Nicky has always appreciated about him.

Andre grins at Nicky and Alex, flushed with booze and probably enjoying the balance of most of his effective blood below the equator. “Oh, hey. Found it,” he says, producing the key card from his back pocket. He slides it in the lock with a minimum of fumbling, and then they’re both falling through the door and out of sight.

Nicky can hear Andre laughing until the door slams.

“You’re letting them live it down?” Alex asks, contemplating the door and then frowning at Nicky’s sensible future-breakfast outfit of a “Blood, Sweat & Beards” t-shirt and leggings. “I always offer you clothes.”

Nicky decides not to dignify that last one with an answer. “As long as he thinks I’ll kill him I can’t lose a face off.”

“You are diabolical,” Alex says.

Nicky raises both eyebrows.

“Word of day calendar.” Alex shrugs. “We going again or not?”

Nicky takes a last look at Andre’s door and allows himself a smile. “Do you think if we scream loud enough they’ll hear us?”

“I think maybe they already scarred for life.” Alex grins. Nicky loves that missing tooth.

-

Washington

-

After the game, Parson is lurking around outside the player’s exit, ostensibly trying to look subtle, if the way he’s leaning against the breezeblocks with his hat pulled way down is any indication.

“Parson,” Nicky says, looking down at him, “you look casual.”

“I kind of hate you right now, don’t make me kick you.” Parse looks up at him. Nicky tries his hardest to give nothing away, because a game is only enjoyable as long as both people are playing it. Well, except for Solitaire, probably. Parson clears his throat. “Are you really mad?”

It takes Nicky a second longer than he’s proud of to realise that Parson might be serious. “Depends,” Nicky tells him, testing the water. “Are you a shithead?”

“Only sometimes. I mean, yeah, obviously—” He waves in his own general direction. “Yeah. Gotta lean in, you know?”

“Then I guess I’m mad ‘only sometimes.’” Nicky grins. “You always this easy to get to?”

Parson grimaces. “You really have no idea how much you look like the kind of person who’d peel my skin off and wear it as a onesie, do you?”

Nicky takes that as a compliment. “I take that as a compliment,” he tells him, just so Parson knows exactly how flattered Nicky is. “Do you think sexual repression creates a culture of exhibitionism?”

Parson blinks at him. “Do I— what?”

“I said—“

“I heard you,” Parson says, “I’m going now.”

“Parson, wait.” Nicky has been enjoying himself immensely, but the tragic instinct in him to ensure a good time is had by all refuses to be silent. “Next time I’ll just knock you over, how’s that?”

Parson stares directly at his chest. “Uh huh. Those are my options? Marry your fake Swedish stepchild or get hip-checked into orbit by your big ass?”

“Or we could fight,” Nicky says serenely.

Parson grins, finally seeming to catch on. “I’m not falling for that one,” he says. “Everyone knows fighting you is a package deal.”

“I can make Alex promise to leave your teeth alone,” Nicky offers, feeling he’s being very fair about the whole thing.

“You’ll have to catch me first.” Parson backs away for a few steps, eyes locked on Nicky’s, much like a cautious cat, before he turns to jog back down the hallway. Nicky watches him go, enormously satisfied.

Strange man, Kent Parson. Nicky will never admit to liking him. That would ruin the fun.

-

**Author's Note:**

> somewhere offscreen claude giroux is laughing hysterically and shooting cheez whiz directly into his mouth
> 
> "Andre loves so easily" comes directly from lanyon, pls direct all rage to them


End file.
